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Apple posted a note to developers this week saying that, soon, all new app updates in the iOS App Store must support both the iPhone X's display—that is, the notch and the phone's unique screen dimensions—and the iOS 11 SDK. The company will begin enforcing this rule in July.

This is the next phase in a series of announcements and changes from Apple to guide developers in supporting new hardware and software. In February, Apple said that all submissions of new apps must support these same features. In this case, it's not just new apps that have to comply: iOS 11 and iPhone X support will be required to submit updates for existing apps, too.

iOS 11 delivers innovative features and the redesigned App Store to hundreds of millions of customers around the world. Your apps can deliver more intelligent, unified, and immersive experiences with Core ML, ARKit, new camera APIs, new SiriKit domains, Apple Music integration, drag and drop for iPad, and more. Starting July 2018, all iOS app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 11 SDK and must support the Super Retina display of iPhone X.

After the iPhone X launched, Ars interviewed several iOS app and game developers to learn what is required to support the iPhone X. We learned that—as long as developers had already been following Apple's existing design guidelines rather than relying heavily on custom layouts—the transition is not usually difficult.

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The TrueDepth sensor array housing—or the notch, as most have come to call it—was usually not the biggest challenge. Rather, developers told us that the main challenge is supporting the new almost-always-on-screen home indicator, which is a thin bar that indicates the user can swipe up to access multitasking and other features.

Apple has been providing developers with videos and documentation on how to support the new features for many months now. Many well-maintained, popular apps have already been updated, but there are plenty that still haven't.

Later this year, Apple is expected to launch more phones with similar screen shapes to that of the iPhone X, so support will be even more important. This is not the first time Apple has issued deadlines to support certain features; it has done so on similar schedules with prior iPhones.

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Samuel Axon
Based in Los Angeles, Samuel is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he covers Apple products, display technology, internal PC hardware, and more. He is a reformed media executive who has been writing about technology for 10 years at Ars Technica, Engadget, Mashable, PC World, and many others. Emailsamuel.axon@arstechnica.com//Twitter@SamuelAxon

In February, Apple said that all submissions of new apps must support these same features. In this case, it's not just new apps that have to comply: iOS 11 and iPhone X support will be required to submit updates for existing apps too.

Google has published a timeline for mandatory API level adoption. Generally, API levels that are a year old will become mandatory for new and updated apps. This will begin in August 2018, when targeting API level 26 (Android 8.0, released August 2017) will be mandatory for new apps. A month later, the requirement kicks in for all app updates.

In February, Apple said that all submissions of new apps must support these same features. In this case, it's not just new apps that have to comply: iOS 11 and iPhone X support will be required to submit updates for existing apps too.

Google has published a timeline for mandatory API level adoption. Generally, API levels that are a year old will become mandatory for new and updated apps. This will begin in August 2018, when targeting API level 26 (Android 8.0, released August 2017) will be mandatory for new apps. A month later, the requirement kicks in for all app updates.

It's so annoying to be forced to do work to support this flawed screen design.

Most of the work is to respect the "safe area" and not display anything outside of the safe area for fear that it will be visually obscured (or completely invisible) and/or impossible to tap on because the taps will be sucked up by the stupid grab handle.

What's the point of a bigger screen when significant portions of it are virtually unusable?

It has taken me hours/days to update apps for this ridiculous design. Infuriating.

My iPhone OS will get updated because I still need a phone while its apps will drop like flies because developers will drop supporting Apple apps because of the lack of support from Apple. My iPad will stay at its current OS to keep the apps I purchased that Apple won't support.

Meanwhile, I have reconfirmed that purchasing apps is a mug's game and I cannot be arse'd to purchase the new shiny Apple device because of the drop in functionality from the Apple 'eco-sphere'.

Currently, the only 'Apple' device I'm interested in would be the one made by Eris, not Jobs.

The odd shape at the top (curved corners and notch) developers can largely ignore. Fill it with status bar in portrait mode and black in landscape mode. The bottom part of the display is a layout nightmare: the curved corners and home screen indicator combine to give a WTF user interface design experience. Apple should just let developers leave it black and ignore it. Their weird instructions where we have to pretend that it is useful just get in the way of clean interface design.

One question that arises: if the mandate is to be iOS11 compatible for old apps, and that breaks the app for older devices stuck on previous versions (e.g. older iPads), do the old apps remain around if you need to factory reset/restore the device?

It's so annoying to be forced to do work to support this flawed screen design.

Most of the work is to respect the "safe area" and not display anything outside of the safe area for fear that it will be visually obscured (or completely invisible) and/or impossible to tap on because the taps will be sucked up by the stupid grab handle.

What's the point of a bigger screen when significant portions of it are virtually unusable?

It has taken me hours/days to update apps for this ridiculous design. Infuriating.

It's not an unusable screen area, it's just an area that should only be used for displaying content that doesn't accept touch input.

And if you find a few hours or days of dealing with complexities like this infuriating, then you seriously need to pick another career. Software development involves dealing with stuff like this *all the time*.

One question that arises: if the mandate is to be iOS11 compatible for old apps, and that breaks the app for older devices stuck on previous versions (e.g. older iPads), do the old apps remain around if you need to factory reset/restore the device?

I believe the App Store will prompt to download the most recent compatible version.

One question that arises: if the mandate is to be iOS11 compatible for old apps, and that breaks the app for older devices stuck on previous versions (e.g. older iPads), do the old apps remain around if you need to factory reset/restore the device?

It means you're forced to use the latest version of Xcode, which can target iOS 8 and newer and the iPhone 4S and newer/iPad 2 and newer.

There are hoops you can jump through to support even older devices... but given the iPhone 4 is 7 years old now, there won't be many around (batteries don't last forever).

Most developers drop support after a couple of years because you don't get enough users to justify time spent supporting older devices. People who rarely update their hardware also rarely install new apps. Nobody goes back 7 years unless it's an enterprise environment... and in that case this restriction doesn't apply (I do enterprise iOS development and we can support devices as old as we want to go back - iPhone 1 if we have to).

Anyone who already owns a license for an old version of your app will be able to download it forever, they just can't purchase a new license for the old version.

It's not an unusable screen area, it's just an area that should only be sued for displaying content, not accepting touch input.

But Apple's UI guidelines have always STRONGLY encouraged using the bottom of the display for user interface elements. (And still do.) To do a 180 and suddenly say that this prime user interface real estate is no longer intended for user interface display is just bizarre.

As for content display, there are round corners and a home screen indicator there. Both of these are headaches when it comes to displaying content.

What we have is a space that is poorly adapted for almost every conceivable purpose, but which we are being forced to use anyway.

It's so annoying to be forced to do work to support this flawed screen design.

Most of the work is to respect the "safe area" and not display anything outside of the safe area for fear that it will be visually obscured (or completely invisible) and/or impossible to tap on because the taps will be sucked up by the stupid grab handle.

What's the point of a bigger screen when significant portions of it are virtually unusable?

It has taken me hours/days to update apps for this ridiculous design. Infuriating.

It's not an unusable screen area, it's just an area that should only be used for displaying content that doesn't accept touch input.

And if you find a few hours or days of dealing with complexities like this infuriating, then you seriously need to pick another career. Software development involves dealing with stuff like this *all the time*.

Speaking from my own experience, if you make your UI using the tools Apple provides, ie laying things out relative to the guides, then this kind of thing requires little or no work. The developers that get burned are the ones who have resisted updating their methods despite several years of Apple’s urging or that rely on poorly maintained third party tools rather than the ones Apple provides.

It's not an unusable screen area, it's just an area that should only be sued for displaying content, not accepting touch input.

But Apple's UI guidelines have always STRONGLY encouraged using the bottom of the display for user interface elements. (And still do.) To do a 180 and suddenly say that this prime user interface real estate is no longer intended for user interface display is just bizarre.

Apple has always recommended a margin.

It was around 20px on older devices and the new one is around 30px (although many apps do more like 50px).

Quote:

As for content display, there are round corners and a home screen indicator there. Both of these are headaches when it comes to displaying content.

Come on, they're really not headaches. macOS has had rounded corners on the screen for several decades, and they've had smaller rounded corners on windows for about a decade. It's not a problem.

Really the only thing you can't put there is buttons. And buttons should never have been hard up against the bottom anyway.

Quote:

What we have is a space that is poorly adapted for almost every conceivable purpose, but which we are being forced to use anyway, with the only reason that I can see to avoid embarrassing Apple so that they can pretend the display design wasn't an error.

The top is excellent for displaying the time, batter status, etc.

On the bottom is nice for displaying whatever background was already there. I bet once users are accustomed to it Apple will remove the home indicator as well.

Later this year, Apple is expected to launch more phones with similar screen shapes to that of the iPhone X, so support will be even more important.

This requirement - combined with Cooks' statement that the iPhone X was the best selling iPhone for every week in the past quarter - would seem to make that 'expectation' damn near guaranteed.

EDIT to add: As it is now, I'm curious to see if Apple offers an iPhone 8 or SE2 - or just goes all-in on Face ID.

God willing, it won't be "all in on FaceID". The iPhone X has a lot going for it, with the best battery and by far the best screen I've ever seen on a smart phone. But FaceID is the most frustrating usability regression I've ever experienced on an Apple product. It works well for what it is but it's still a horrid method to unlock a device, when compared to TouchID.

The layout tools include manually specifying exactly what is drawn on each individual pixel of the screen. There are no limitations.

Layout has nothing to do with pixel locations as such, it has to do with positioning elements relative to other elements and determining what happens when elements appear, disappear, move, grow, or shrink, and how animations work in those cases. Apple has a rule-based system that can handle quite a few situations, and are quite useful, but it isn't hard to want to do things that the rules can't express.

Come on, they're really not headaches. macOS has had rounded corners on the screen for several decades

??? Macs have rounded corners on the bezel to be sure, but what Mac has round corners on the DISPLAY? None that I can think of.

The first ones had it, not all of them since have. It goes in and out of fashion.

Various technical implementations have existed, sometimes physical bezels, sometimes software drawing black pixels over some or all of the corners, sometimes with display hardware that actually can't draw in the corner at all...

In any case, the API for drawing content on the screen of a mac has always operated on rectangles for screens and windows, but usually the corners were rounded off. Right now, I'm typing this comment into a browser window on a mac, and the corners of the website are rounded at the bottom... and the top is rendered behind the toolbar with a blur effect.

The layout tools include manually specifying exactly what is drawn on each individual pixel of the screen. There are no limitations.

Layout has nothing to do with pixel locations as such, it has to do with positioning elements relative to other elements and determining what happens when elements appear, disappear, move, grow, or shrink, and how animations work in those cases. Apple has a rule-based system that can handle quite a few situations, and are quite useful, but it isn't hard to want to do things that the rules can't express.

There are alternatives to the rule based system that gives the app developer full control, including specifying positions with subpixel precision and providing custom animation algorithms. It's unlimited.

The things this will kill me with is my kids’ games-the more educational (and less micro-payment/freemium) will likely die. It seems like every time there is one of these requirements we lose a bunch of apps (the 64-bit transition lost some real favorites). I wish there was something like the iPhone 5 letterboxing of iPhone 4 apps that was a little cleaner (leave the status bar up top, bump the rest to the bottom of that, and leave the home swipe at the bottom in an otherwise unused bottom margin. And just block them off in landscape.

In February, Apple said that all submissions of new apps must support these same features. In this case, it's not just new apps that have to comply: iOS 11 and iPhone X support will be required to submit updates for existing apps too.

Google has published a timeline for mandatory API level adoption. Generally, API levels that are a year old will become mandatory for new and updated apps. This will begin in August 2018, when targeting API level 26 (Android 8.0, released August 2017) will be mandatory for new apps. A month later, the requirement kicks in for all app updates.

Only if meant sarcastically

What else do you think the smiley was for

Though it would be nice if some of the more rabid apple "enthusiasts" stopped shitting all over unrelated topics.

It's so annoying to be forced to do work to support this flawed screen design.

Most of the work is to respect the "safe area" and not display anything outside of the safe area for fear that it will be visually obscured (or completely invisible) and/or impossible to tap on because the taps will be sucked up by the stupid grab handle.

What's the point of a bigger screen when significant portions of it are virtually unusable?

It has taken me hours/days to update apps for this ridiculous design. Infuriating.

Except the screens aren't actually getting any bigger, the surface area is shrinking due to the now seemingly standard 18:9 aspect ratio - the iPhone X has a 19.5:9 ratio. The X's 5.8" screen has less surface area than a 16:9 5.5" display, and that's before the wasted space of the notch.

Android phones are just as guilty, maybe moreso, since Google doesn't enforce much of anything.

I'm a solo game developer. At first the IOS ecosystem was known for it's lack of fragmentation. Now it is like designing for an Xbox, then an Xbox 360, then an Xbox One, except the major software, hardware, and architectural changes come every year or two.

It's not just a question of one piece of software or hardware. Your version of Xcode has to support the right SDK, which needs the right OS version, which might have broken support for your version of Unity, which drops support for JavaScript, which needs the latest version to target AppleTV, and the newest phone aspect ratio, and so on.

For myself, as an indie developer, the most difficult part of mobile game development has been keeping up with these requirements. And these requirements are not optional. It's easy to spend more time on this than building actual game content.

I understand the need for progress. But can we please find value in refinement and stability, as well as in unfettered growth?

...Speaking from my own experience, if you make your UI using the tools Apple provides, ie laying things out relative to the guides, then this kind of thing requires little or no work. The developers that get burned are the ones who have resisted updating their methods despite several years of Apple’s urging or that rely on poorly maintained third party tools rather than the ones Apple provides.

Depends on what kind of apps you make. Certainly if you're making utilities or whatnot that use Apple's standard UI elements and Apple's standard UI layout tools/software, it's not that much work. If you make video games where the UI is largely drawn by the app at specific screen coordinates in OpenGL or whatever, it's a non-trivial amount of work to modify everything so it works nicely and looks nice on an iPhone X. Don't assume that everybody all makes the same kind of apps.